Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.
– Harold Whitman
See that quote? That’s pretty much the essence of what we’re trying to get at over the next five days. We’re trying to figure out what makes you come alive.
- Is it a very specific way of serving others?
- Is it a specific kind of recognition?
- Is it influencing people in a specific way?
The important thing to keep in mind over the next five days is this: there is no ‘one way’ to do the thing that makes us come alive.
My ‘thing’ is helping people bring order to their lives.
I currently choose to do this via writing here on the blog. I used to do it by volunteering a lot of time in organisations I was highly invested in. Other people like me might choose to do it by getting into politics, or becoming teachers, or actors, or tv presenters. While writing is my preferred avenue for doing my thing right now, down the track it might change to podcasting or speaking.
The numbers of ways I can choose to do my thing at this current time in my life are limited by a few things:
- My imagination.
- Personal circumstances (ie business owner with a young family).
- My values (I value ‘achievement’ and ‘recognition’ quite highly … but not at the expense of being able to be ‘present’ in mind, body and spirit for my family).
The same will apply to you – there will be many ways to do your thing and how you do your thing can and will change over time.
This is all a kinda long way of saying, “Please don’t approach the questions over the next few days as looking for ‘the answer’. Use the questions and the prompts as a way to explore and get a better of understanding of what you value and what actually drives you in life.”
Knowing these two things:
- Stops you chasing goals and dreams that belong to other people, not you.
- Allows you to say no to things that might be causing unnecessary overwhelm at the moment.
So let’s get to it shall we?!
Today’s task has three parts/questions:
Part 1: Describe a (hopefully relatively recent) situation where you felt super ‘buzzy’/energised/on top of your game.
- Where were you, who were you with and what were you doing?
- How did you come to be there?
- What was it exactly about the situation that made you feel so buzzy/energised?
Part 2: Describe a (hopefully relatively recent) situation or moment where you felt ridiculously content.
- Where were you, who were you with and what were you doing?
- How did you come to be there?
- What was it exactly about the situation that made you feel so buzzy/energised?
Part 3: Quick analysis
- Going on your answers to the above, what is jumping out at you as things you value highly/bring out the best in you?
And that’s it for today! You can download a worksheet with the above questions here. That worksheet also includes my own answers to the above and the conclusions I have drawn from them.
If you’d like to share your answers to the above, or ask me some questions about the above, you can ask to join the private A Life Less Frantic Facebook group here.